Former British Minister Accuses Saudi of Going ’Completely Mad’ over Yemen War

By Staff, Agencies

Former British Cabinet Minister Andrew Mitchell accused the Saudi leadership of losing the plot over the war in Yemen.

Speaking at an event in the Palace of Westminster earlier this month, Mitchell, who served as secretary of state for international development from 2010 to 2012, was scathing about the humanitarian suffering being caused in Yemen by the coalition led by Saudi Arabia.

“This is a conflict where in my view Saudi Arabia has gone completely mad. It happens to countries from time to time... Countries do go bonkers and I think Saudi Arabia has gone completely bonkers in this war,” he told a meeting of the South Asia and Middle East Forum on 14 February.

Mitchell, who visited Yemen in early 2017, also said the UK government had to bear its share of responsibility for the humanitarian catastrophe which has befallen the country.

According to the UN World Food Program, some 20 million Yemenis currently require food assistance, out of a total population of some 30.5 million. Mitchell has previously said that the UK government is complicit in creating famine conditions in Yemen.

“The UK has made a tremendous strategic misjudgment about this conflict,” Mitchell told the February meeting.

“The British government some time ago took the view that the economic and security relationship with Saudi Arabia trumps everything else and it is precisely those two priorities that have been so gravely damaged by this conflict. Why? Because as I saw for myself on the ground, the impact of what Britain and America, with French support, are doing in this conflict is radicalizing tens of thousands of young Yemenis who know the great powers who are responsible for their misery, their starvation and the destruction of the basic infrastructure of their country.”

Mitchell said that British policy towards Saudi Arabia and the Yemen conflict has been undergoing a change since Jeremy Hunt took over as Foreign Secretary in July last year and since details emerged of the brutal murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in October – a death which the CIA has linked to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.